Dual GPU video cards

[Kev367th]

Gigabyte will be releasing another dual GPU video card real soon.

It will be based on two 6600 GPU's, and is expected to be around $400 this includes a mobo.

From Gigabyte - The manufacturer apparently tested the board internally and achieved higher benchmark results than the X850 XT. The 3DMark 2003 score is said to be slightly above 13,000 points while the ATI board ended up at around 12,750 in a comparable test environment.

They also have a dual 6600GT available but at a higher cost, $550 including mobo.

Skuzzy - Any thoughts on dual GPU vs SLI?
Or even dual GPU's with dual cards in SLI, with an AMD dual core CPU?

Looked at the upcoming Intel dual core but I think -
1) It's going to be more expensive.
2) It's going to be slower as it uses the FSB for inter core communication.

As a 'bonus' the latest XP64 (RC2) trial has gone so well the expected release date is now expected to be between March 28 and April 28.
Another rumor is that if you have XP-Pro there will be a special trade in price!!!!

[Schutt]

The dual processor solutions basically run SLI on one graphics board. So there is not much of a diffrence between dual gpu cards and sli configurations. For sure they have compatible and SLI able BIOS and architecture.

Basically, since AH2 does not support SLI at the moment, youll be running on one gpu in both cases. All the speed tests are moot, one high end GPU gives more power to applications that dont run with sli.

So probably you cant run two dual GPU cards in one comp.

The upgrade later argument of buying one 6800Ultra and buying one later doesnt count for dual GPU cards.. since you buy both GPUs at once.

Some of the dual cards share the ram, but most i saw dont. If they share it its bad.

Dual core CPU will only be effective on multithreaded applications. AH2 is not at the moment, so dual core cpus slower than one core since they cant run the same high clock frequency. Maybe directx 10 will take dual core in mind and be specially oriented to help game developers adding threads to get at least some benefit from dual core.

Dual GPU cards in my eyes would only be worth it if its dual 6800GT or Ultra.

[StarOfAfrica2]

Basically agree with what Schutt said.  Just thought to add this.  If they DO ever make a dual GPU 6800 card, it will be so expensive no one will buy it.  Thats why they chose the 6600 to make into the Dual GPU configuration.  It is much less complex and has only half the pipes.  Even still, a 6600 SLI setup outperforms the dual-GPU 6600's by simple fact that they dont share the memory on one card.  Even a single 6800 outperforms the dual-GPU 6600.

[Kev367th]

Thanks Schutt -
In my case the slowest 'dual core' as 2.4Ghz will still be marginally faster than my 3500.
Add to that Windows 2000 Server is multithreaded by standard and that you can set processor affinity with it, I should be able to force AH2 onto the 2nd core.
Both AMD and Intel are expecting multithreaded games to start appearing soon.

Points about the dual GPu's taken in, thanks. Will stick to my 6800GT for the moment.

[bloom25]

It's probably worth throwing in that SLI requires specific driver support for every application.  I doubt nVidia will be coding SLI support for AH anytime in the near future.

[Kev367th]

Originally posted by bloom25
It's probably worth throwing in that SLI requires specific driver support for every application.  I doubt nVidia will be coding SLI support for AH anytime in the near future.

True, but you can put support into the nvapps.xml file for any game yourself.